GTA San Andreas has 11 radio stations, plus a custom station for your own music on PC, Xbox and iOS. Ten stations play music, with a total of 155 licensed songs. The eleventh station, West Coast Talk Radio (WCTR), plays talk shows. The game is set in 1992, and most songs come from that year or earlier. The table below lists each station, host and song count.
What are all the radio stations in GTA San Andreas?
The game has these 11 stations. The song counts come from the full tracklists on GTABase and Sportskeeda. Both lists give the same songs, and the counts add up to 155.
| Station | Genre | Host | Songs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playback FM | Classic East Coast hip hop | Forth Right MC | 12 |
| K-Rose | Classic country | Mary-Beth Maybell | 15 |
| K-DST "The Dust" | Classic rock | Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith | 17 |
| Bounce FM | Funk, disco, soul, R&B | The Funktipus | 17 |
| San Fierro Underground Radio (SF-UR) | House | Hans Oberlander | 16 |
| Radio Los Santos | West Coast hip hop, gangsta rap | Julio G | 16 |
| Radio X | Alternative rock, metal, grunge | Sage | 15 |
| CSR 103.9 | New jack swing, soul, pop | Phillip "PM" Michaels | 13 |
| K-JAH West | Reggae, dub, dancehall | Marshall Peters and Johnny Lawton | 16 |
| Master Sounds 98.3 | Rare groove, classic funk, soul | Johnny "The Love Giant" Parkinson | 18 |
| West Coast Talk Radio (WCTR) | Talk radio | Barbara Fox and show hosts | None |
The custom station is not in the table, because it plays your own files. The GTA Wiki says that Playback FM is the favorite station of CJ at the start of the game, and K-Rose is his least favorite. Your choices change this later.
Who voices the GTA San Andreas radio hosts?
Many of the hosts have famous voices. Rockstar gave some of the DJ jobs to real musicians and radio people. GameSpot reported these names when Rockstar revealed the cast in 2004. GameSpot said that "some of the most famous voice talent" in the game voiced the DJs.
| Station | Host | Voice actor | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playback FM | Forth Right MC | Chuck D of Public Enemy | GameSpot, game credits |
| K-Rose | Mary-Beth Maybell | Riette Burdick | Sportskeeda |
| K-DST | Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith | Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses | GameSpot, game credits |
| Bounce FM | The Funktipus | George Clinton | GameSpot |
| SF-UR | Hans Oberlander | Lloyd Floyd | Sportskeeda |
| Radio Los Santos | Julio G | Julio G, a real DJ from Lynwood, California | Game credits, Sportskeeda |
| Radio X | Sage | Jodie Shawback | Sportskeeda |
| CSR 103.9 | Phillip "PM" Michaels | Michael Bivins | Sportskeeda |
| K-JAH West | Marshall Peters and Johnny Lawton | Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare (Sly and Robbie) | GameSpot, Sportskeeda |
| Master Sounds 98.3 | Johnny "The Love Giant" Parkinson | Ricky Harris | Sportskeeda |
GameSpot also said that Andy Dick appears on WCTR. The game credits list the K-DST DJ as Axl Rose, and the Radio X playlist includes "Welcome to the Jungle" by his band.
Later GTA games keep this idea. In GTA 5, the model Cara Delevingne hosts Non-Stop-Pop FM.
How many songs are on the GTA San Andreas radio?
The radio has 155 songs. GTABase and the GTA Wiki both give this number. Wikipedia says that the radio plays "more than 150 tracks of licensed music". Rockstar Games first released the game for PlayStation 2 on 26 October 2004.
San Andreas was the first GTA game where all the songs were licensed. It also changed how the radio works:
- Older GTA games played each station as one audio file in a loop. The songs and DJ lines came in the same order every time.
- San Andreas puts the songs, DJ lines, ads and weather reports in a random order.
- The GTA Wiki says that San Andreas is the only game in the series where every station is dynamic.
Interscope released two official albums. The Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack came out on 23 November 2004, with two music discs and one DVD. The eight-disc Official Soundtrack Box Set came out on 7 December 2004.
Which songs were removed from GTA San Andreas?
In November 2014, a Steam update for San Andreas removed songs from the radio. Engadget and PC Gamer both reported 17 songs. Engadget said that the same 17 songs were missing from the mobile versions, and it said that expired licences were the likely cause. Engadget also said that Rockstar did not answer its questions.
The removed songs are not in later versions, and that includes The Definitive Edition. GTABase and the GTA Wiki both mark these songs as removed:
| Station | Removed song |
|---|---|
| Playback FM | Ultramagnetic MCs - "Critical Beatdown" |
| K-DST | Tom Petty - "Runnin' Down a Dream" |
| K-DST | Joe Cocker - "Woman to Woman" |
| Bounce FM | Fatback Band - "Yum Yum (Gimme Some)" |
| Bounce FM | Gap Band - "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" |
| Bounce FM | Roy Ayers - "Running Away" |
| Radio Los Santos | 2Pac (feat. Pogo) - "I Don't Give a Fuck" |
The lists do not agree on every song. GTABase marks 20 songs, which is more than the 17 in the press reports. For example, it marks one song on K-Rose and one on SF-UR, but the GTA Wiki says that K-Rose, SF-UR and CSR 103.9 keep their original playlists. Check the version that you play. Licences also removed songs from later games, as our list of Songs Removed From GTA 5 shows.
How do you play your own music on the GTA San Andreas radio?
The PC and Xbox versions have a custom station with the name "User Track Player". The iOS version calls it "Mixtape".
- On PC, put .mp3 or .ogg files in the "User Tracks" folder in your GTA San Andreas user files.
- Open the audio options and scan for new music.
- In a car, change stations until you get to the User Track Player.
- Select sequential order, random order, or radio mode. Radio mode plays ads between your songs.
On iOS, make an iTunes playlist with the name GTASA. Then change stations in a car until you get to "Tape Deck". On PC, GTA 5 has a station like this too. Our guide to the GTA 5 Radio Wheel: Controls, Favorites and Self Radio tells you how to use it.
What is on West Coast Talk Radio in GTA San Andreas?
WCTR broadcasts from Los Santos and plays no music. Barbara Fox reads the intros and outros. The station has these shows:
| Show | Topic | Host |
|---|---|---|
| WCTR News | State news | Lianne Forget with Richard Burns |
| The Tight End Zone | Sports | Derrick Thackery |
| The Wild Traveler | Travel | James Pedeaston |
| Entertaining America | Celebrity guests | Billy Dexter, then Lazlow |
| Gardening with Maurice | Gardening | Maurice |
| I Say/You Say | Political debate | Peyton Phillips and Mary Phillips |
| Lonely Hearts | Relationship advice | Christy MacIntyre, then Fernando Martinez |
| Area 53 | A spoof of Coast to Coast AM | Marvin Trill |
Some WCTR programs change as the story continues. In Entertaining America, Lazlow takes over the show after Billy Dexter dies on air.
You can make your own radio line too. Type a line in the GTA radio voice generator, and you get a clip in the style of a Los Santos station. The DJ Cara voice generator reads your words in the voice of the Non-Stop-Pop FM host. The voice is an AI recreation of the radio character DJ Cara, not Cara Delevingne, and Rockstar has nothing to do with it.
Sources
- https://www.gtabase.com/gta-san-andreas/radio-stations/
- https://gta.fandom.com/wiki/Radio_Stations_in_GTA_San_Andreas
- https://gta.wiki/w/Radio_Stations_in_GTA_San_Andreas
- https://www.sportskeeda.com/gta/all-gta-san-andreas-radio-stations-ranked
- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/samuel-l-jackson-james-woods-lead-san-andreas-all-star-cast/1100-6111344/
- https://www.gta-sanandreas.com/credits/
- https://engadget.com/2014/11/10/17-songs-pulled-from-gta-san-andreas-in-latest-steam-update
- https://www.pcgamer.com/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-steam-update-removes-songs-resolution-options/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundtracks_of_Grand_Theft_Auto:_San_Andreas